Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Here's a simple watercolor of a notable building in nearby Long Beach California that has had a roller coaster history. It's 14 stories, was built as a luxury oceanfront hotel in 1926 and designated as a Historic Landmark in 1989. Its seen more than its share of ups and downs over the years and never quite maintained its luxury hotel status for very long. It now operates as a retirement home.

This time of day the sun reflects from nearby glass buildings creating interesting patterns across the side and illuminating the bottom half while leaving the top in shadow.

It is these kinds of atmospheric effects I look for, and quite often add to a painting myself, for turning what would otherwise be an ordinary image of a city building, into one with some life and vigor.207

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Here's another done in a looser approach. I only do the barest line drawing of the big shapes, then find the image in paint. A landscape in Oceanside California, trackside on the scenic Amtrak route.
For me this is a departure from the usual industrial railroads I do. It is more landscape than railroad, the only hint is the shed at the edge of the tracks, which are represented by the only straight line in the composition.
This is similar to the approach I used on this cityscape.206

Sunday, February 3, 2013

This was done from a visit to the Cajon pass to chase trains, one of those accidental discoveries. It's an old barn which looked like it had functioned as different kinds of business's over the years. It was boarded up, broken into, and now is a dumping ground for the people too lazy to haul their discards to the dump. Eventually the roof will collapse, swallowing up the interior and all its illicit cast offs.

I had to resist any natural inclination to tighten-up the painting, allowing the looser less controlled approach to hint at the litter without really defining anything. It is about its blighted condition.
I made sure to indicate enough of the interior structure, the ceiling joists, to make it recognizable.205

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About My Blog

Thank you for visiting my blog. Before I started this I very carefully considered the purpose and intent of a blog. Unlike a website it gets updated more frequently, contains more text, and may contain other info or updates not seen on a website.

As others have done, I decided it would be more like a book or journal. Here is the place for my insights on art, my work, and specific images. Something that I miss on some blogs. I'm always very interested in how other artists think, how they arrived at their images, their own uniqueness... different than my own.

When I want to just see images I visit their website, when I want to know more, I visit their blog. I see no reason to have both the same.

With that in mind I designed my blog to be as simple as possible so as not to detract from the art or writing. And although it will be constantly evolving I will try not lose sight of that.

Using the book model, I choose a blog title (book title) and use post titles (chapter titles) different than the titles of the images. Why be redundant? That info is available directly under the image.

Sometimes image titles in series are long or all have similar names, making blog archive searches for a specific image harder to remember and find. So a couple of words taken from or relating to the writing for that post title will make it easier to remember for some, since the writing and image are tied to each other as well as serve as an alternate title, which I don't mind.

About My Work

My artwork generally falls into one of five genre's; Industrial, Seascape, Cityscape, Landscape and Figure. These five genre's very often are a vehicle for representing some other idea, impression or statement. Which means the image may be a cityscape for example, but beneath the surface lies something more. I hope you take the time to examine my work on this basis... looking for the real content... because I know for me, that is where the real joy begins.